


oh the sun is gonna rise

by justsleepwalkin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Friendship, Gen, M/M, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EP 97, Major Spoilers, Post ep 97, Protective Nott (Critical Role), Spoilers, implied Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast - Freeform, implied pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22949437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: Nott's always had a strange relationship with distrust and protectiveness.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss & Nott
Comments: 3
Kudos: 118





	oh the sun is gonna rise

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while settling after all the travel from Chicago and being sleep deprived, as one does. It's a little disjointed, several thoughts sort of mashed together, though I tried to smooth it out.

> I know the winds are changing  
> but I can’t see em change  
> cuz I’ve been using peace  
> as a way to measure pain  
> [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiL6MCp7Vyg) Hold Your Head High by Reuben and the Dark

-

The cargo hold of the _Ball-Eater_ is much less crowded than it was, the group moving out to discuss whether or not they were actually willing to let Essek leave their presence. It left him, and the newly-turned halfling girl who had chosen to stay on watch; she tries to give him the silence he must be craving after being so heavily exposed, but it draws on too long for her. 

“I think he may love you,” she says, and it's no question who she's referring to, “and if you're as much as a mirror as he seems to think then you must know how big a deal that is.”

There's a tightening of Essek's hands, grasped around each other now that he's been released of the shackles. 

“Of course,” Essek rasps, voice raw from the emotion of the night. “It isn't as though it's something I scoff at.”

Veth nods. Her gaze shifts from Essek to stare towards a wall where one of the crew had nailed a dartboard.

“I don't trust you,” she says. “You helped me. You're a sliver of the reason I'm even _me_ again at all—but Caleb, he would have figured it out even without you.”

“Yes,” Essek agrees. 

Veth continues as though he hadn't spoke, “But I don't trust you, no matter what you've done for us. I think you're going to just hurt him again.”

Essek twists about like he may as well still be shackled. There's a curl of his lips almost in a sneer. “Then why all... _this_?”

Veth's hands crook in towards her party dress, picked out and tailored to her unknown dreams by Jester.

Her eyes snap right back to him, but he refuses to meet them. “Because if he—or any of us—just kills you, or cut ties with you, it will gut him. He's come so far and I'm so proud of him and I think losing you now will do him more harm than giving you a very risky second chance. You go, ask Caduceus, I bet you he'll say something like—like—you know where you stand now. If you mess up again, that's all you.” Veth frowns. "Or, I don't know. You should ask him anyway. Point is, I already told you, you're like us. You're equal with the rest of us, where we are or where we were.”

Essek makes the same wrecked laugh that fell from him when the entirety of the Mighty Nein had still been in the cargo hold. The complete disarray of his thoughts scattered as they had been since the moment the group stepped upon the _Wind of Eons_. 

Veth crosses her arms. “Seriously Yasha was brainwashed and tried to kill me and I've nearly let that go.”

“I did this of my own volition,” Essek reminds her, a brief glance up. 

“Yeah, okay, but you've been alone for, what, you said a century? Besides, I get it, you know. The war. It's all white noise against what you want. I mean, I didn't go and _start_ the war—that's _crazy_ , Essek, real bad stuff there—but I was going to keep it going if it let my curse be removed. In another world, if I didn't have all of them and somehow still got there, I would have. They'll stop you, too. And not in a slice your throat kind of way. You know. Words.”

Essek just shakes his head. He opens his mouth to try and speak and silence prevails and he looks distressed. His voice finally cracks around the words, “I don't deserve forgiveness.”

“You're not _getting_ forgiveness, you're getting a chance. A choice. You might never get forgiveness, and you can't act based on that. This is you, now. Your starting point. We might all get wiped out by the Empire. Or the Dynasty. We might not even make it to the meeting and get shanked by a jilted sea god along the way—”

“— _What_?” Essek breaks in, mildly bewildered and thrown. 

“Doesn't matter. Frankly you probably don't deserve anything, but we're giving you this chance because we're the same, and _we_ all needed that chance one way or another.”

Essek draws in a stunted breath and unwinds his knotted hands, holding them up in a lost gesture, eyes on the floor. “I don't want,” a breath, “to hurt him—nor any of you.”

“Good.”

“But I don't know if I won't.”

Veth smiles weakly. “I... know. I know that. I do. Just...” She fights for what to say, losing steam, and pictures in her mind Caleb crouched down and pleading, his soul laid bare to match the mirrored Essek. “Just try,” she whispers. “Please.”

Another stretch of silence, the unsteadiness of the air suffocating. Then, hushed but with the firm bite of determination, he says, "That, I can promise.” He meets her gaze and manages to hold it. “That, I'm _willing_ to promise."

Veth nods, once, like it's sealing a new curse. Maybe it is. “Good,” she says again, then shifts her stance into something more casual and less defensive. “Now, I'd say give him some space, but he's not going to let you. Because that's what he'd want if he were you even if it wasn't what he really needed. So just. Be careful, I guess.” 

A hesitant smile creeps along Essek's face. “Which one of us are you trying to protect?”

Veth huffs loudly. “You both are very shattered people, you know. It makes these things very hard. I'm _really mad_ at you because you're the first person we dared to put our trust in and—and—” She swallows down her hurried words as Essek's smile fades, wishing only for a second for her flask before banishing the thought. “But you've clearly never had protection before and it's okay to let people look after you and I can still do that even if I'm mad so you're just going to have to deal with that, alright?”

Solemnly, Essek answers, “Alright.” And that smile doesn't return, but when the Captain and his First Mate come to deliver the settled-upon decision and Veth stands a little closer to Essek, he lets some of his coiled tension drop from his shoulders, and takes his first steady breath.

-

> One low voice  
> whispering  
> Hold your head high  
> Hold your head high  
> Hold your head high  
> Oh the sun is gonna rise  
> Hold your head high  
> Hold your head high  
> The moon will sink, the sun will rise  
> so hold your head high

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't tag this as Essek & Veth to try and avoid those spoilers being in tags.


End file.
